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Ferghana Valley
The Ferghana Valley (Uzbek: Farg‘ona vodiysi, Kyrgyz: Фергана өрөөнү, Tajik: водии Фaрғонa, Russian: Ферганская долина‎) is a region in Central Asia spread across eastern Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. It is an inter-mountain depression, between the mountain systems of the Tien-Shan in the north and the Gissar-Alai in the south. The valley is approximately 300 km long and up to 100 km wide, forming an area of 22.000 km2. A valley in what is an often dry part of Central Asia, the Ferghana owes its fertility to two rivers, the Naryn and the Kara Darya, which run from the east, joining near Namangan, forming the Syr Darya river. The valley's history stretches back over 2.300 years, when its population was conquered by Greco-Bactrian invaders from the west. Chinese chroniclers date its towns to more than 2.100 years ago, as a path between Greek, Chinese, Bactrian and Parthian civilizations. The fertile Ferghana Valley was an important staging-post on the Silk Road for goods and people traveling from China to the Middle East and Europe. After crossing the passes from Kashgar in Xinjiang, traders would have found welcome relief in the fertile abundance of Ferghana, as well as the possibility of purchasing further high-quality silk manufactured in Margilan. The most famous export from the region were the "blood-sweating" horses. During the 8th century, Ferghana Valley was the location of fierce rivalry between the Tang Dynasty of China and the expansion of Muslim power, leading to the Battle of Talas in 751 AD, which marked the victory of Islam and the disengagement of China from Central Asia. Two antecedent battles in 715 and 717 had seen the Chinese to prevail over Arab forces. From then, a series of Arab, Persian and later Turkic Muslim rulers reigned over the Ferghana Valley. Ferghana also played a central role in the history of the Mughal dynasty of South Asia in that Omar Sheikh Mirza, chieftain of Farghana, was the father of Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur (1483–1530), founder of the Mughal dynasty in India. At Mirza's death in 1498, Babur became chief, although he was still a minor. The Russian Empire conquered the valley at the end of the 19th century and it became part of the Soviet Union from the beginning of the 20th. Its three soviet regional states gained independence in 1991. The area is populated by ethnically Uzbek, Tajiks and Kyrgyz, often intermixed and not matching modern borders. As early as 500 BC, the western sections of the Ferghana Valley formed part of the Sogdiana region, which was ruled from further west and owed fealty to the Achaemenid Empire at the time of Darius the Great. The independent and warlike Sogdiana formed a border region insulating the Achaemenid Persians from the nomadic Scythians to the north and east. The Sogdian Rock or Rock of Ariamazes, a fortress in Sogdiana, was captured in 327 BC by the forces of Alexander the Great; after an extended campaign putting down Sogdiana resistance and founding military outposts manned by his Greek veterans, Alexander united Sogdiana with Bactria into one satrapy. In 329 BC, Alexander the Great founded a Greek settlement with the city of Alexandria Eschate "The Furthest", in the southwestern part of the Ferghana Valley, on the southern bank of the river Syr Darya, at the location of the modern city of Khujand, in the state of Tajikistan. It was later ruled by Seleucids before secession of Bactria. After 155 BC, the Yuezhi were pushed into Ferghana by neighbors from the north and east. The Yuezhi invaded urban civilization of the Dayuan in Ferghana, eventually settling on the northern bank of the Oxus, in modern-day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, just north of the Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian kingdom. The Greek city of Alexandria on the Oxus was apparently burnt to the ground by the Yuezhi around 145 BC. Pushed by these twin forces, the Greco-Bactrian kingdom reoriented itself around lands in what is now Afghanistan, while the new invaders were partially assimilated into the Hellenistic culture left in Ferghana valley. The kingdom of the Dayan The ancient kingdom referred to as Dayuan (Chinese: 大宛 - "Great Yuan", literally "Great Ionians") in the Chinese chronicles is now generally accepted as being in the Ferghana Valley. Dayuan were the descendants of the Greek colonists that were settled by Alexander the Great in Ferghana in 329 BC and prospered within the Hellenistic realm of the Seleucids and Greco-Bactrians, until they were isolated by the migrations of the Yuezhi people around 160 BC. It has been suggested that the name "Yuan" was simply a transliteration of the words "Yona" or "Yavana", used throughout antiquity in Asia to designate Greeks (Ionians). Around the same time, the Xiongnu formed the first confederation of nomadic tribes in Inner Asia in the late 3rd century BC. The First Emperor of Qin of China sent 100.000 troops against them in 213 BC. The early Han emperors tried conciliatory policies, wooing the Xiongnu leaders with generous gifts, including silk, rice, cash and even imperial princesses as brides. Critics of these policies feared that they merely strengthened the enemy. And indeed, in 166 BC, 140.000 Xiongnu horsemen raided deep into China, reaching a point less than 100 miles from the capital. In those years during the Former Han era, Emperor Wudi (141 - 87 BC) was under constant pressure from the Xiongnu. Deciding to end the humiliating peace treaty, the emperor embarked on an aggressive policy of punitive force. For these ends, in 139 BC Wudi sent his envoy Zhang Qian to travel west of China to the territory of Yuezhi in order to try and secure an ally who would attack the Xiongnu from the west while China attacked from the south. Also the emperor sent 300.000 troops far into Xiongnu territory in 133 BC. Despite the rough journey, which included Zhang Qian being held captive by the Xiongnu for more than ten years, the emperor’s loyal envoy eventually continued on his journey throughout much of the lands of Central Asia, bringing back a vast amount of information. It was Zhang Qing who first reported in 126 BC to Emperor Wudi about the magnificent "blood-sweating horses" (Hanxue-ma 汗血馬) of Central Asia. These magnificent animals, believed to have descended from heavenly horses, were said to come from the kingdom of the Dayuan, in an area located in the Ferghana Valley. In 101 BC, after three years' effort, a Chinese army made its way beyond the Pamir Mountains to defeat Ferghana, seize large numbers of its excellent horses and gain recognition of Chinese overlordship. Chinese paintings and statuary indicate that the horses from Ferghana Valley had powerful crests, short legs and round-barreled bodies. With careful training and masterful training, these horses soon became the favored breed in China. At that time in China, the more horses you owned the higher your status. The terracotta statues of horses found in tombs have flaring nostrils, pricked ears, powerful legs and strong necks. Probably these statues were the first to depict the Ferghana horse in Chinese art. The city of Ferghana Ferghana (Uzbek: Farg'ona/Фарғона; Russian: Фергана́) is a the capital of Ferghana Province in eastern Uzbekistan, at the southern edge of the Ferghana Valley. Modern Ferghana city was founded in 1876 as a garrison town and colonial appendage to Margelan city by the Russians. It was initially named New Margelan (Новый Маргелан), then renamed Skobelev (Скобелев) in 1910 after the first Russian military governor of Ferghana Valley. In 1924, after the Bolshevik reconquest of the region in 1918–1920, the name was changed to Ferghana, after the province of which it was the center. Ferghana has been a center for oil production in the Ferghana Valley since the region's first oil refinery was built near the city in 1908. Since then, more refineries have been added and Ferghana is one of the most important centers of oil refining in Uzbekistan. Natural gas from western Uzbekistan is transported by pipeline to the valley, where it is used to manufacture fertilizer. The Great Ferghana Canal, built almost entirely by hand during the 1930s, passes through the northern part of the city and completed in 1939. Silk of Kings from Ferghana Valley Once upon a time, the Khan of Kokand, who already had four wives, decided he wanted a fifth. He fell in love with the beautiful young daughter of a local artisan from Margilan. The artisan did not want to marry off his daughter and asked the Khan to change his mind. The Khan respected the artisan and his skill and said he would consent to the man's wishes if he created something more beautiful and wonderful than his daughter in the course of one night. The artisan struggled with this throughout the night, but still by daybreak had not succeeded. At dawn, he sat by a stream, lamenting the loss of his daughter, when suddenly, reflected in the blue water he saw all the colors of sunrise, clouds and a rainbow; he knew what he had to do. From this incredible vision, he created a silk that was unsurpassed in beauty and originality: light and airy as a cloud, cool like a pure mountain air and as iridescent as a rainbow. He brought a piece of the fabric to the Khan. "How did you do that?" - He asked. The artisan said: "I took green rain-washed leaves, added colors of tulip petals, the blush of dawn, blue night sky, patches of sunlight on the water and bright eyes of my beloved daughter and mixed everything up". And the Khan could not help but agree that the fabric was more wonderful than the artisan's daughter and agreed to rescind his marriage proposal. From this legend, the silk of the Ferghana Valley received its name: "Khan-Atlas" or "Silk of Kings". Sources * Bonavia, J. "The Silk Road From Xi’an to Kashgar". Revised by Christoph Baumer, 2004. Odyssey Publications * Bernard, P. "Alexander and his successors in Central Asia". In: History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations: 700 BC to 250 AD, p. 88–97. Harmatta, János, ed. 1994. Paris. UNESCO Publishing * Dates of renaming taken from Adrian Room, Placenames of the World: Origins and Meanings of the Names for Over 5000 Natural Features, Countries, Capitals, Territories, Cities and Historical Sites, McFarland, 1997, p.124 * Bartold, V. "Sart" Encyclopaedia of Islam Vol. IV S-Z. Leiden & London, 1934 * Beisembiev T. "Annotated indices to the Kokand Chronicles". Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Studia Culturae Islamica. No 91, 2008 * Victor H. Mair. Sino-Platonic Papers, Number 173. A Study of the History of the Relationship between the Western and Eastern Han, Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Western Regions, by Taishan Yu. October, 2006. Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia